Daniele Archibugi is a director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR), and professor of innovation, governance and public policy at Birkbeck College.

The image of the past

The idea that freedom and
democracy can be exported all over the world is an ancient dream. Athenian democrats,
French revolutionaries, and Russian Bolsheviks, to mention only the
better-known cases, were convinced that their own political system was good
enough to be donated to all peoples. But not even the path to freedom is
carpeted with rose-petals: enthusiasm is often mingled with fanaticism;
idealism must come to terms with the
harsh laws of Realpolitik (see Luciano Canfora, Esportare
la liberta [Mondadori, 2007]).Daniele
Archibugi is director of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), affiliated to the Institute on Population and Social
Policy (IRPPS), and professor of
innovation,
governance and public policy at Birkbeck College, London. His website is here.

At the end of the second
world war, democracy was a gift made by the Americans to the Europeans. An Italian
cannot be unmindful of the glorious days of the summer of 1944 and the spring
of 1945, when the main Italian cities were being liberated by Allied troops. I
use the term liberated because this was the feeling of the vast majority of
Italians, who considered that the Allies' arrival marked the end of Nazi and
fascist brutality, of civil war, and of the air raids. However, it is often
forgotten that at the time the Allies referred to Italy as an "occupied"
country; rightly so, since until only a few months before, it had been an
active ally of Hitler's Germany.

But even if Italy had been
the enemy until the day before, not a single shot was fired in anger against
the Allies. As soon as the Allies arrived on the ground, hostilities ceased.
The heavy Allied bombing of the Italian cities, which had
caused numerous deaths among the civilian population comparable to the number
of deaths caused by the ruthless Nazi reprisals, was immediately forgotten. On
the ground, the Allies, and the Americans in particular,
did not arouse feelings of fear but were immediately regarded as friends and
brothers, who handed out cigarettes and joined in the dancing and singing.
Above all, they spoke of freedom and democracy.

If the Italians welcomed the Americans
so warmly, it was partly because Italian immigrants on the other side of the
Atlantic had explained what the United States was like, but it was above all
because the ant-Nazi and anti-fascist resistance had spread the idea among the
population that the Allies were not enemies of the people but rather, as they
had been promptly renamed, Allies - not just because the troops came from an
alliance of countries but because they could be considered our allies against
dictatorship.

In Germany and Japan
there was no civil war as in Italy, and the resistance was much weaker in those
countries. Indeed, the Allies were not greeted there by a flurry of flags as
they were in Italy, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, even
though they were not actually attacked
by anyone. In all three defeated countries, the winds of change were felt
promptly because there was awareness that the occupation troops would be staying for only
a brief period and that before leaving the country they would plant the seeds
of a political system - democracy - that
would benefit the whole population.

The idea that it
was a matter of setting up not trusted regimes but rather democratic
governments was much more deeply rooted in the Americans than in the British.
Britain headed a world empire and was more interested in having faithful
regimes than democratic ones. Despite the looming rivalry with the Soviet Union
and its recent satellite states, the United States believed in the value of
democracy for the purpose of consolidating the bonds among free peoples.
Political parties, trade unions, information agencies, judicial apparatuses -
all received substantial support from the American administration. Ever since,
United States foreign policy has repeatedly declared that its objective is to
spread democracy, often by means of armed intervention.

To export democracy has actually always been one of the
declared priorities of US foreign policy (see Tony Smith, America's Mission: The United States and the
Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century
[Princeton University Press, 2001]). The successes achieved at the end of the
second world war gave rise to the idea that any military action could produce
the same outcome. Not even years and years of supporting dictatorships (for
instance, all over the Latin American continent at the time of Henry
Kissinger), not even the CIA plots against elected governments, could erase
from the mind of the American public opinion that its country was not only the
freest in the world but also better able than any other to liberate the others.

Neither the isolationists nor the interventionists have
ever denied the good intentions of the exporter and the advantages accruing to
the importer: the American debate focused on whether it is in the country's
interest to carry out these interventions (see Michael Cox, G John Ikenberry
& Takashi Inoguchi, eds., American Democracy Promotion:
Impulses, Strategies, and Impacts (Oxford University Press,
2000).

Yet, the sentiments
expressed by the vast majority of world public opinion no longer supports the
United States's concept of its mission. Since 1945, scepticism has continued to
grow concerning the legitimacy and efficacy of external action. American
intervention outside its frontiers is increasingly perceived as an imperial
projection. As a result of the uncertain outcome of the mission in Afghanistan
and the Iraq disaster, this scepticism has spread also to the American
population.

This essay re-examines the
question of the exportability of democracy in the light of the cosmopolitan project.
Unlike humanitarian intervention - discussed elsewhere in the book on which on
which the essay draws - exporting democracy involves not only preventing acts
of genocide but also imposing a specific regime: democracy. It is proactive and
not just interdictive (see The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan
Democracy[Princeton
University Press, 2008).

The question raises
much greater conceptual problems: while it is only to be expected that all
individuals wish to survive, it cannot be taken for granted that they wish to
participate in the management of public affairs. A humanitarian intervention by
definition refers to political communities in which peaceful coexistence has ceased;
while an intervention to export democracy can also be directed toward
communities that, although authoritarian, guarantee their citizens' security.
Anyone wishing to export democracy must therefore be sure that their
intervention will be appreciated and not perceived by the population as merely
replacing one internal authoritarian regime with another imposed from the
outside.

This essay asks whether it
is legitimate, and what means may be used, to bring about a regime in
autocratic countries in order to convert them to democracy. The cosmopolitan
project holds that all political communities can embrace the values and rules
of democracy; but who can legitimately and effectively extend the values of
democracy geographically, and how can they do so? The following section
considers the theoretical implications of exporting democracy; the next
addresses the available ways and means, and their efficacy in this perhaps
decisive issue; the last assesses the role played by international
organisations (IOs) in fostering democracy.

Regime change as power-act

Why should democracies be concerned with
exporting their own system instead of enjoying its fruits in their own home?
Imposing a regime from the outside is above all an act of power, and democratic
countries are certainly not the only
ones to be led into temptation. The most frequent reasons that convince a
political community to invest its own resources to change a regime elsewhere
are its own interests and the hope to acquire resources from other
societies. In some cases, this offensive inclination involves annexation and
the subjugated peoples will claim self- determination; in other cases, a state
may attempt to achieve its objectives by imposing from the outside a given
internal regime by setting up "puppet" governments.

A wide-ranging historical review
covering the past five centuries has taken into consideration nearly two
hundred cases of countries imposing internal institutions on other countries
from the outside (see John Owen, "The
Foreign Imposition of Domestic Institutions" [International Organization,
52/2, 2002]). A report on such heterogeneous cases that covers a long
period of time helps to frame the problem in a perspective that is less
dominated by contemporary ideology.

It is not surprising to find that the countries
imposing the change are
usually the great powers, while the countries whose regime is changed through
external imposition are the less powerful ones: you cannot impose if you do not
have the power to do so. The cases reviewed show that whenever a country set
about imposing regimes from the outside, it tends to do so repeatedly.

The regimes imposed from abroad vary
widely, ranging from absolute monarchies to republics, from constitutional
monarchies to democracies, from nationalist dictatorships to communist systems.
As might be expected, the regime promoted tends to correspond to that of the
promoting power, although there is no general rule. In many cases, a political
community imposes a different regime, sometimes one of an opposite political
nature, as is demonstrated by the colonial domination of the European powers.

The external imposition of
internal regimes tends to be concentrated into given historical periods
characterised by massive ideological confrontations, such as the European wars
of religion of the early 17th century, the disorders following the French
revolution, and the period after the second world war. Those favourable to the
stability of the international system understandably are concerned over these
upheavals, and it is not surprising that after a period of furious conflicts
arising out of the desire to dominate from the exterior there are attempts to
dampen enthusiasm by boosting the principles of national sovereignty,
non-interference, and self-determination. The Treaty
of Münster (1648), the Congress of
Vienna (1814-15), and the San Francisco charter
(1945) may all be viewed as attempts to set up counterbalancing forces by treaties,
rules, and institutions designed to safeguard each player's autonomy.

Is there any substantial
difference in imposing a democratic regime rather than a Catholic, Protestant,
Islamic, communist, or fascist regime? Today the democratic countries are
politically dominant and could, like any other regime, feel tempted to expand
their own geographic area of influence out of self-interest. A democratic
country could, for example, consider that states having a similar regime are
more reliable trade partners and less inclined to start a war or to threaten
their security, as well as being probable allies in the case of conflict. In
other words, a democratic state might have a vested interest in living in a
condominium of democratic states simply in view of the benefits involved. If
these are the reasons, there would be no greater legitimacy underlying the
intention of exporting democracy than there would be in imposing any other regime.
The attempt to export democracy would represent a new version of undue interference
of one state in the internal affairs of another.

For these reasons, it is
necessary to assess the intentions of not only those offering to carry out an
intervention but also those living in the political community where the
intervention is intended. It seems logical to attach greater weight to the
wishes of those who intend to "import" democracy than to those who wish to
"export" it. The exporter should ask himself whether signals exist on the
interior that indicate a wide- spread desire for regime change.

From insurrection to
interference

Interference may be justified in support
of peoples seeking to free themselves from an authoritarian system, but why
would a people need an external intervention instead of taking its destiny into
its own hands? If a people are under the yoke of an
authoritarian government, they can revolt against it and set up a government
that complies more closely with their desires. When the social contract between
a government and its people is broken, until an open contrast
becomes apparent between the government in power and the rebels, it can be
expected that external forces may take sides with one of the factions without
foreigners being accused of upsetting the state of
peace or of interfering in another country's internal affairs. But in the
absence of any overt or at least latent rebellion, external intervention will
verge on undue interference. Above all, it is difficult to ask the
citizens of the democratic countries to put their lives at risk and to put their
hands in their pockets to provide a more satisfactory government to citizens
who are unwilling to do the same for themselves.

An overt rebellion does
not necessarily signify a commitment to democracy by the rebels. History is
filled with revolts that have replaced an authoritarian regime with one that is
even more authoritarian. In the many cases in which a people is split
into several factions, the main aim of external intervention must therefore not
be to support one of the warring factions but to find an agreement among them
all. For pacification to be effective, the conflicting parties must also agree
on how to manage public affairs, and democratisation becomes the principal
instrument for doing this. Rather than as an ally of one of the factions, external
intervention is required to act as a mediator or arbitrator (see Nichael W
Doyle & Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building
Peace: United Nations Peace Operations[Princeton University Press,
2006]. However, in these cases, the external intervention takes
place when a civil war is already under way; those who intervene from the
outside cannot be blamed for breaking the state of peace.

It might be expected that democratic countries would
unconditionally support those struggling for democracy. Historical experience
shows, however, that this is not a general rule. Just as the very Catholic
France supported the Dutch Protestants against the very Catholic Habsburgs and
the French monarchy supported the Republican rebels against the British
monarchy, the United States supported General
Augusto Pinochet rather than the elected Chilean government of Salvador
Allende. During the Spanish civil war, Germany and Italy consistently supported
Francisco Franco, while Great Britain and France were much more ambivalent in
their actions. No
unequivocal solidarity seems to emerge between democratic governments and movements
fighting for democracy.

Regime-change after
aggression

Regime change often occurs as the result
of a compulsory transition after a war. A government that starts a war of
aggression and loses it also loses its legitimacy as a member of the
international community and in the eyes of its own
subjects. In such circumstances it is not surprising that internal and external
pressures combined can lead to a radical change of regime. One typical case
occurred in the post-1945 years. The Allies deemed it necessary to remove all
traces of national-socialism from Germany and its allies. This policy was
legitimised not only by the crimes against humanity carried out by Nazism but
also by the obvious argument of self-defence: that is, to prevent the same
regime from committing new acts of aggression.

However, the action taken
by the Soviet Union was opposite to that of the Allies: while in the German Democratic
Republic (East Germany) a government was set up under direct Soviet control,
the Allies expressed complete confidence in West Germany's capacity for
self-government, provided that West Germany carried out a radical and
irreversible regime change. The Allies decided implicitly not to blame German
citizens for the crimes committed by their government and concentrated instead
on the individual prosecution of those who were directly involved with the
crimes of the old regime. Recognition of individual responsibility for the
crime of aggression or for crimes against humanity was used to provide legitimacy
for a new leadership based on completely different values.

The approach taken by the
victors of the second world war was quite different to that followed after the
first world war. At the Paris
peace conference of 1919, the victorious powers imposed sanctions and
reparations on Germany, implicitly
considering the German people fully responsible for their government's actions.
These powers also implemented a number of "containment" actions aimed at
preventing Germany from ever again representing a
threat to its neighbours. The democratic institutions of the Weimar republic
failed to mitigate the victors' claims. The disastrous outcome of the Treaty of Versailles
induced the Allies to radically change tack after
1945.

Unfortunately, these
long-standing lessons were ignored at the end of the Gulf war in 1991: after
winning the war, the allied countries left power firmly in the hands of the
existing ruling class, further isolating Iraq from the international community
and weakening it by implementing "containment", thus making the country's
oppressed citizens pay a higher price than the regime's ruling class (I
therefore believe, unlike Michael Walzer, that "containment" is the policy
least likely to encourage regime change; see "Regime Change and
Just War" [Dissent, 52/3, summer 2006].

The lesson that may
be learned from the second world war is that if a country suffers an
aggression, it acquires the right and the duty to set up a different regime in
the defeated country, if for no other reason than self-protection. However,
this does not represent a specific justification for exporting democracy;
otherwise a state having suffered an aggression for religious reasons could, if
it won the war, claim the right to remove the religious institutions underlying
the aggression.

Exporting democracy can
gain legitimacy provided that it is based on three intentions (see Laurence
Whitehead ed., The
International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas
[Oxford University Press, 2001]). The first intention is
related to the willingness to sound out the intentions of the peoples of third
states with regard to a democratic regime. It must be assumed not only that it
is in the interest of these peoples to have a democratic government, but also that peoples may not
succeed in attaining their objective because they are repressed by the ruling
government. A democracy-exporting agent acting in good faith should, in other
words, give priority to the importer's reasons over the exporter's own reasons.
Otherwise, one of those typical cases arises that (in Robespierre's words)
reflects the mania to make peoples happy against their will. In some cases, the
intentions of a people may be explicit, for instance, when a government in
power refuses to step down after losing free and fair elections, as happened in the
Philippines in 1986 and Myanmar in 1990. In these cases, international law has
begun to be used to safeguard internal norms (see Thomas M Franck, "The
Emerging Right to Democratic Governance" [American Journal of International Law,
86/1, 1992]).

The second intention is
related to giving the population freedom of choice regarding its own form of
government. It is clearly anti-democratic to want to export democracy without
allowing the people to decide which
constitutional form they prefer. Exporting democracy means giving people the
chance to decide which constitutional form to apply.

What can be exported from
the outside is the power of self-government, while the specific democratic form
must be decided on the inside. The third intention refers to the way of
assessing the political regimes involved. Since exporting
democracy requires the existence of at least two agents, the importer and the exporter,
it would be necessary to perform an in dependent assessment to establish
whether the importer actually needs a change of regime and whether the exporter
is in a position to develop an alternative regime.

It has already been seen
how controversial it is to assess democratic regimes and how reluctant also
consoli- dated democracies are to accept external assessments. Ideally, only
global legislative and judiciary institutions can legitimately define such
criteria and apply them (see Gregory H Fox & Brad R Roth, eds., Democratic
Governance and International Law [Cambridge University Press, 2000]).
In the absence of such power, the would-be exporter of democracy would have to
rely on the opinion expressed by existing institutions or third-party
organisations.

The means of export

The discussion presented
in the preceding section may seem abstract. Indeed, much of the controversy arising
over the idea of exporting democracy is not
related to its theoretical legitimacy but to the means used. While few would
deny the utility of exporting democracy through persuasion, the matter becomes
much more controversial when it is intended to use coercive means. What are the
consequences of using coercion (the stick) instead of persuasion and incentives
(the carrot)?

The stick

The means of coercion par
excellence for exporting democracy is war, as in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
In this case, the means (war) is clearly in conflict with the end (democracy).
The violent means represented by war does not involve despots
alone but inevitably ends up affecting also the individuals who are expected to
benefit from the regime change. The use of such means is the least suitable for
effectively promoting a regime based on non-violence and for protecting the
citizens' interests. Rather than establishing a ruling-class alternative to the
one in power, a war of aggression creates a vacuum and only aggravates local
conflicts. In the case in which the public expresses an explicit will in favour
of a democratic government, this does not mean that the same public will accept
a military invasion.

The case of Panama in May
1989 is instructive. The then president Manuel Noriega and his regime, after losing
the elections, refused to hand over power. Although Panamanian citizens had
expressed their desire to have a different government, they feared an armed
intervention by the United States to overthrow Noriega. This was a classic case
in which the population would have preferred external help of the non-violent
kind - for instance, a naval blockade (see Eytan Gilboa, "The Panama Invasion
Revisited: Lessons for the Use of Force in the Post Cold War Era" [Political Science Quarterly, 110/4,
1995]).

But as well as
representing a clear-cut contradiction between means and ends, historical
experience shows that only in rare cases can a democratic regime be set up
using external military means. What happened in Germany, Japan, and Italy in 1945 represents a
unique experience that is unlikely to be repeated. A survey by the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace dedicated to US involvement in military operations
abroad in the 20th century indicates that only rarely was democratisation the
result (see Minxin
Pei & Sara Kasper, Lessons from
the Past: The American Record on Nation Building [Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, 2003]). In the first
half of the century, the failed military operations involved countries that
were neighbours of the United States and apparently easy to control: such as
Panama (1903-36), Nicaragua (1909-33), Haiti (1915-34), the Dominican Republic
(1916-24), and Cuba (1898-1902, 1906-09, and 1917-22).

Other military
occupations, such as in Korea in the 1950s and South Vietnam and Cambodia in
the 1960s and 1970s, were dictated mainly by the intention to block communist
expansion, and democratisation was not even attempted. Since the end of the
cold war, the US administration has not achieved any lasting success even in
Haiti (see Karin Von Hippel, Democracy
by Force: U.S. Military Intervention in the Post- Cold War World
[Cambridge University Press, 2000]). After the second world war, evident
successes have been Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983), two small states closely
linked to the US economy and society. In the case of Panama, a heavy price was
paid.

Even more discouraging is
the record of the two old European colonial powers, France and Britain. France
and Britain almost never explicitly intended their military interventions
abroad to favour democratic forces but rather to follow the traditional logic
of maintaining political influence. French and British interventions after 1945
almost always led to reduced political liberalisation and to support of the
existing regimes, even when those regimes were oppressive (see Jeffrey
Pickering & Mark Peceny, "Forging Democracy at Gunpoint" [International Studies
Quarterly, 50/3, 2006). The problems and failures in Afghanistan and in
Iraq have numerous precedents. How can such disappointing results be accounted
for?

One of the first
ingredients that seems to be missing in the attempt to export democracy is the
determination of the exporters, who are more often inclined to promote reliable
and faithful regimes than to allow the self-determination of
peoples. In a situation in which the intentions are controversial and the
successes (to say the least) questionable, it is understandable that the
developing countries should view with some distrust the good intentions of
western countries, especially when they propose using coercive means; and that
even the greatest champions of the democratic cultivate this distrust.

When the intention is to export democracy using
coercive means, another
decisive aspect is overlooked: namely, the consequences that involvement
in a war has for the exporter. In war each state is compelled to forgo some of its own
freedom. The citizens are sent to war, civil freedoms are reduced, the relative
weight of the strong powers (army, secret ser vice, and security apparatus)
increases at the expense of transparency and control. Democracies
that are perpetually at war develop chronic diseases.

The United States and
Britain, which have been involved in a never-ending series of high- and low-intensity conflicts since 1945, have so
far resisted incredibly well in preserving their own democratic system at home.
But not even these two states have been able to avoid sacrificing part of their
own democratic institutions on the altar of national interest. In the state of
necessity produced by war, torture and the killing of unarmed prisoners have
been committed and justified; these would have never been tolerated by public
opinion in peacetime. Exporting democracy by military means also signifies
reducing democracy on the home front.

At the height of the
enthusiasm for the export of freedom at bayonet-point, at the beginning of the
French revolutionary wars, a few wise voices were raised to warn against the
looming dangers. One of them said:

"Invincible within, and by
your administration and your laws a model to every race, there will not be a
single government which will not strive to imitate you, not one which will not
be honoured by your alliance; but if, for the vainglory of establishing your
principles outside your country, you neglect to care for your own felicity at home, despotism, which
is no more than asleep, will awake, you will be rent by intestine disorder, you
will have exhausted your monies and your soldiers, and all that, all that to
return to kiss the manacles the tyrants, who will have subjugated you during
your absence, will impose upon you; all you desire may be wrought without
leaving your home: let other people observe you happy, and they will rush to
happiness by the same road you have traced for them."

These words date from 1793
and belong to the Marquis de Sade. Perhaps because they were contained in a
book whose raving author had been consigned to an institution, they had little
effect at the time. But it is never too late to meditate upon them.

The carrot

Must it therefore be
concluded that nothing can be done to export democracy outside one's borders;
and, as the Marquis de Sade suggests, that the only useful thing left for
democratic countries to do is to perfect their own political system to
the degree that other peoples will want to imitate them?

There is no reason to be
so sceptical. If democratic states support the self-determination of other
peoples, they will soon discover that other peoples want to participate in the
way power is managed in their own society. The error implicit in the mania to
export democracy refers solely to the means, not to the end. If the end is
legitimate, what instruments are therefore available to the democratic states?

The first and most obvious
instrument is linked to economic, social, political, and cultural incentives.
The present-day domination of the west is so widespread that, if its countries'
priority is truly to expand democracy, they ought to commit more resources to
the effort. The facts suggest otherwise: in 2005, the United States's defence
appropriation amounted to more than 4% of its gross domestic product, and that
of the European Union countries to more than 2%. By comparison, the amounts
dedicated to development aid are small change: currently around 0.1% of the
US's GDP and 0.3 % of that of the EU (see the World
Development Indicators, World Bank 2005-08). Moreover, only a meagre
proportion of these funds are explicitly earmarked for encouraging democracy.

But the carrot does not
consist solely of economic aid. Economic aid can be effective but may also be
perceived as a form imposition by a rich and powerful state on a small and weak
one. The logically most convincing way to export
democracy is to have it transmitted by the citizens of the democratic countries
opening up direct channels between themselves and the citizens of the
authoritarian countries. Professional and cultural associations and
other transnational organizations play an important role in connecting
citizens. During the cold war, these channels proved fundamental in supporting
the opposition in the Soviet-bloc countries and in forming
an alternative ruling class (see Mary Kaldor & EP Thompson, eds., Europe
from Below: An East-West Dialogue
[Verso, 1991]).

These channels are often politically weak and easy to counter: the
leaders of the opposition that maintain personal contacts are often placed
under surveillance
and are the first to be repressed. The governments in power are capable of
brushing off for decades all requests for political liberalization; this is
exemplified in the case of Burma and the persecution suffered by the opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi, even in the face of a pressing
international-solidarity campaign. Yet the political importance of these
channels cannot be discounted. At least they demonstrate to the oppressed inhabitants
of authoritarian regimes that political societies expressing solidarity for
their aspirations exist. Without this solidarity, Vacláv Havel, Nelson
Mandela, and Lech
Wałesa would never have been transformed from political prisoners to heads of
state.

Using persuasive means
also reinforces instead of weakening democracy in the exporting countries.
Involving civil society in foreign-policy choices - for example by directing
trade, tourism, and economic aid flows toward countries
that respect human rights and where self- government prevails - helps the populations
of democratic countries to pursue the values underlying their own social
contract. If the citizens of these countries become
ambassadors for their own political system and plead its cause abroad, they
thus come to embody and project the democratic values that underpin their
societies.

It is equally important to
offer countries that might choose democracy the chance to join the club of democratic
states on equal terms, rather than establish an explicit hierarchy in which a
state deems it can export its own system instead of allowing different states
to participate in a political union where the various systems are compared and
reinforced. If democracy can be defined as a journey, some peoples could
benefit from travelling together.
It is therefore not surprising that international organisations continue to
play an extremely useful role in spreading democracy.

The role of
"internationals"

International
organisations (IOs)act
on behalf of democratisation by exerting pressure on authoritarian governments:
this is true both of those which accept as members regimes of very
different character (as in the case of the United Nations) and of those which
accept only democratic states (as in the case of the European Union). The UN
exerted weak pressure in the direction of democratisation in the 1960s and
1970s; this pressure has increased considerably since the 1990s, in part
because the number of the UN's member-states that are democracies has gradually
increased. A virtuous circle has been set up in which the greater the number of
democratic states, the tougher it has become for the others not to be
democratic.

The capacity of regional
organisations may become extremely strong, even though they depend on the
nature of their membership and the available incentives (see Jon C Pevehouse, Democracy
from Above? Regional Organizations and Democratization [Cambridge
University Press, 2005]). The EU has a greater force of persuasion than the
Arab League, for example, both because it may reach a greater degree of
consensus on democratic values and because it has more instruments and
resources to commit. International organisations can influence internal democratisation
through at least three channels: stable centre of gravity, crafting of rules,
and economic integration.

The IOs often represent a
point of reference and stability during the transition process. The elites in power
often fear that regime change will be accompanied by a violent change in the
economic and social base, will wipe out their
acquired privileges, and will expose them to reprisals. In many cases they fear
that the regime they control may be replaced one that is equally authoritarian
one; this can make the ruling classes extremely reluctant to liberalise the
political system, and induce them to defend the existing regime even at the
cost of unleashing a civil war.

In this context, IO
membership may instead prove useful in defining the future rules of
coexistence, for example in helping to allow the ruling faction to become one
of the political parties represented in the new regime. The other member-states
can act as models on which to base the future regime. Likewise, once political
liberalisation has been achieved, the IOs can contribute to stabilising the
existing political regime and sheltering it from attempted coups d'état.
Not surprisingly, countries increase their propensity to participate in IOs
after democratisation (see Edward D Mansfield & Jon C Pevehouse,
"Democratization and International Organizations" [International
Organization, 60/1, 2006). Several IOs have in the past undertaken to
suspend countries whose governments seized power in a coup. Article 30 of the
statute of the African
Union, for example, states: "Governments which shall come to power through
unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of
the Union."

In
the transition from an authoritarian regime to a
democratic one, the parties and factions involved distrust each other. A
supranational institution can
not only certify the outcome of the electoral process but also contribute to
planning the constitutional system. Precisely because IOs are multilateral,
they are less likely to dominate one state or to be perceived as an instrument
of domination. It is therefore not surprising that the UN electoral-assistance
office has become increasingly active and that numerous IOs, including the Organisation of American
States (OAS) and the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) receive a growing number of
requests for collaboration in organising or certifying elections. Among NGOs,
the action of the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
(International IDEA) is
particularly dynamic and effective (see Electoral Management
Design: The International IDEA Handbook [IDEA, 2006]).

The IOs open up channels
of communication among states, involving not only governments but also enterprises.
IOs whose principal aim is free trade boost the dialogue between players
operating in different countries, making it more
difficult for authoritarian regimes to control economic agents (see Bruce
Russett & John R Oneal, Triangulating
Peace: Democracy, interdependence, and
international organizations [WW Norton, 2001]). Furthermore, a growing number of
IOs tie free-trade agreements to the existence of democratic regimes. If a
democratic regime were overthrown, the enterprises could have their access to
foreign markets revoked, which for purely economic reasons would induce them to
defend the democratic institutions.

After the military coup in
1967, Greece was suspended from the Treaty of Association with the European
Community, which exerted considerable pressure inside Greece to restore
democracy, an aim achieved in 1974. Similarly, the attempted coup in Spain in
1981 was resisted by enterprises owing to the consequences the coup would have
had on Spain's proposed membership of the European Community. Other regional organisations
such as Mercosur, which are open solely to democratic countries, are also
helping in consolidating democracy (see Francisco Domínguez & Marcos Guedes
de Oliveira eds., Mercosur:
Between Integration and Democracy [Peter Lang AG, 2004]).

The EU represents the most successful case of an
international organisation setting up and consolidating democratisation. The EU
has some of the toughest membership criteria of any organization: countries
must attain a given level of democracy and maintain it over time. In two
distinct historical periods, and in completely opposite international climates,
the EU has played an extremely useful role in launching democratisation.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the EU played a central role in
allowing southern European countries (Greece, Spain, and Portugal) to emerge
from fascist regimes. In the 1990s and 2000s it played the same role for Europe an countries
in the Soviet bloc. The EU has also very effectively promoted democracy outside
its own continent (see Richard Youngs, The
European Union and the Promotion of Democracy [Oxford University Press,
2002]). The fact that the EU is a "civil power" composed of numerous countries
often in disagreement among themselves has meant that the EU's interventions
were perceived not as imposition but as collaboration (see Mario Telò, Europe,
a Civilian Power? European Union, Global Governance, World Order
[Palgrave, 2006]).

While much attention has
been focused on economic incentives, as represented by access to the largest market
in the world, the political incentives have often been underestimated. As soon
as new members are admitted to the club, they
enjoy the same status as founder members. Romania, admitted only in 2007, has a
larger number of deputies in the European parliament than the Netherlands,
which is one of the six founder members. Even
though each country has a different amount of economic muscle, each country has
the same clout in defining institutional politics and foreign policy. Exclusion
from the EU is in itself already a severe penalty. The EU does not simply give
lessons in democracy, but once new members have been admitted, those new
members define common policies jointly and democratically.

Europe must reproach
itself for not having played the membership card when the former Yugoslavia
broke up in the early 1990s. Perhaps it would have been possible to avoid the
savage wars in Yugoslavia if the EU had demanded that each ethnic community
should break off hostilities and be rewarded by being given a fast-tracked
admission to the EU. It would thus have been possible to reduce the importance
of the fight to delimit the frontiers, as EU membership would have guaranteed
free circulation of persons, goods, and capital and the protection of human
rights for each ethnic group. In that case, the EU failed either to offer a carrot
or to use the stick. It was a failure, but the only one.

It may justly be objected that so far the EU has accepted
new members from among countries that, owing to their economic level,
infrastructures,
and social capital, were considered likely to democratise (see Adam Przeworski,
Sustainable
Democracy[Cambridge University Press, 1995]). The next years will show
if the EU is able to take in countries that are culturally different and/or
have substantially lower income levels. The lesson to be learned from the EU,
however, is that as soon as a state takes seriously the political destiny of
another community, that state should be coherent enough to bound with the other
to form an institutional union.

Since no one offered
Afghanistan and Iraq the opportunity to become the twenty-eighth and
twenty-ninth members of the EU - not to speak of the fifty-first and
fifty-second states of the United States - the scepticism of those who believe
that these wars do not encourage self- government is further reinforced.

After Iraq, what is still
possible?

The war in Iraq has reaped an
unquantified but growing number of victims on the ground, made international
relations stormier, and caused the west to forgo the role of leader among the
developing countries that it had acquired thanks to its material and
cultural resources. The war in Iraq has had another detrimental effect: it has
shown the world's peoples that the west has not shaken off the habits of old
colonialism and new imperialism, aggravated by
its use of the noble values of freedom and democracy as a rhetorical screen behind
which to conceal the interests of restricted elites in power.

Inside the west, this has
produced a dramatic rupture between democratic governments and, at the same
time, between governments and their own publics. Since the west possesses the
resources and the will to export democracy, the Iraqi adventure is destined to
have a decisive impact on the agendas of the future.

A long list of factors
explains why democratising Iraq and Afghanistan has proved so much more
difficult than democratising Germany, Italy, and Japan. Among the ones most
commonly invoked are that Iraq and Afghanistan did not satisfy minimum
conditions regarding income level and political and religious culture; that a
complete defeat of the previous regime is necessary to allow the transition to
take place; and that numerous errors were made in the way the transition
administration was handled (see Thomas Carothers
et al., Multilateral
Strategies to Promote Democracy[Carnegie Council, 2004]; and Larry
Diamond, Squandered
Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to
Iraq [Times Books, 2005]).

All these arguments are valid, but none seem decisive. I
claim that a war of aggression is a means that contradicts its end - and that
this, more than any other factor, explains why the Iraqi people, instead of accepting a regime
imposed by occupation forces, launched into a stubborn resistance.

The damage was done far
beyond Iraq. Just as the Vietnam war discredited the leadership of western countries
and for more than a decade pushed many developing countries and
national-liberation movements toward political systems
that were antagonistic toward those of liberal democracies, the Iraq war
created an opposition to the foreign policy of western countries that will have
unpredictable consequences.

The wave of
democratisations that started in 1989 has come to a sharp halt, and there are
even dangers of regression: after 2003, and for the first time since 1990, the
number of democracies has decreased rather than increased. It will take a long
time and a lot of patience before the democratic countries regain the authority
on the international scene that has been dissipated by George W Bush and Tony
Blair. Yet it would be mistaken to believe that the civil wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan signal that there are people who are not "mature" enough for
democracy or that the international context cannot contribute to its spread and
consolidation.

This essay has revealed
that the opportunity for self-determination may be exported, while the specific
form of democratic government can only be imported; that is, the democratic
government needs to be formed starting from a suitably endogenous political
fabric. This rules out the possibility that democracy can be exported
militarily, unless the attempt takes place after democratic countries have been
attacked.

The historical experience considered confirms that the
cases of successful export of democracy were carried out by means of
persuasion, incentives, and international collaboration. In this case there is
no dilemma regarding the choice of means and ends: the aim of democracy is
achieved much more easily when coherent means are adopted. This lesson is fully
compliant with the cosmopolitan project outlined herein: the external conflict
reinforces the authoritarian regimes, while an international system based on
peace and collaboration makes life difficult for despots and encourages the
internal oppositions required for an effective political liberalisation.

The policy of persuasion, incentives,
and sanctions is not always effective and is rarely timely. South Africa's
apartheid regime, in spite of its extensive international
isolation, remained in place for several de cades before being removed; the
despotic regimes in Burma and many other countries are still under the yoke of
dictatorships. However, the carrot has a huge advantage over the stick: it does
not cause any damage or harm for which the democracies have to take
responsibility. No collateral damage is caused by the attempt to convince other
countries to become democratic. At a time in which there is no certainty that
evil means allow desirable goals to be achieved, it is wise to refrain from
carrying out actions that compromise the democratic cause.